


on the first day of christmas (my brother gave to me)

by ProbablyVoldemort



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Christmas Shopping, Gen, JATP Secret Santa 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:48:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28037934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProbablyVoldemort/pseuds/ProbablyVoldemort
Summary: It's three days before Christmas, and neither Reggie nor Carlos have done any Christmas shopping, so they decide to make a day of it.
Relationships: Carlos Molina & Reggie
Comments: 9
Kudos: 34





	on the first day of christmas (my brother gave to me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BeanieMagee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeanieMagee/gifts).



> Merry Christmas to Ryleigh!
> 
> This fic is for one of the Julie and the Phantoms Secret Santa events, with a request for a Reggie fic! Hope you enjoy some Reggie and Carlos bonding time, and boys being boys being bad at shopping for presents mixed with a bit of feels!
> 
> Hope you all enjoy!!

Reggie was lounging on the couch debating taking a nap when Carlos came in, glancing around like he was looking for something. 

“What’re you looking for?” he asked, knowing that Carlos wouldn’t hear him. He wondered if maybe Carlos had left something here, or if he didn’t know that Julie was out with Flynn. 

“Hello?” Carlos yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth to amplify his voice. “Are there any ghosts in here?” 

Reggie laughed, and reached out to knock a book off the table. Carlos’s head snapped in his direction, and a grin stretched across his face. 

“Good,” he said, nodding. “Which one are you? Throw something when I say your name. Luke.” Reggie scanned the coffee table to find something to throw. “Alex.” He settled on a hackie sack. “Reggie.” He picked up the hackie sack and tossed it at Carlos, who laughed as he caught it. “Reggie! Awesome.” He threw the hackie sack back. “Get up. We’re going to the mall.” 

“What’re we doing at the mall?” Reggie asked, jumping up and crossing the room. Carlos couldn’t hear him, but that had never stopped him from talking before. Carlos hadn’t moved, so Reggie dropped the hackie sack on his head. 

“I’m going, I’m going,” Carlos assured him, throwing up his hands before walking out of the garage. 

They were down the driveway and on the road when Carlos spoke again, turning to the side that Reggie wasn’t on. He quickly ran around the kid, so that he could at least pretend he could see him. 

“I found this in my dad’s office,” Carlos said, holding up...something. It was a plastic stick that was apparently invented sometime in the last twenty five years. Carlos clipped it onto his ear, and Reggie was even more confused. 

“Am I supposed to know what that is?” he asked. 

“It’s a Bluetooth,” Carlos supplied, and it was almost like they were having a real conversation. “I know, I know. It’s a really old one—” Ouch. Okay. Make Reggie feel ancient, why doesn’t he. “—but it’s way more obvious than just using earphones. I can talk to you as much as I want, and everyone will think I’m just on the phone.” 

“That’s so smart,” Reggie said, impressed. “I didn’t know I was living with a genius.” 

Carlos jumped up on the curb, standing on one foot for a moment before continuing on. 

“So you know how Christmas is in, like, three days,” he said, and Reggie nodded at the topic change, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Right. Well, I haven’t bought anyone any Christmas presents yet.” 

Reggie froze for a moment. “No one?” 

“No one,” Carlos repeated. “So you’re gonna help me shop.” 

“Sounds good,” Reggie agreed. “We’re gonna kick the mall’s butt!” 

“Have you bought Christmas presents yet?” Carlos asked, and then turned to look at Reggie. “Do ghosts even buy Christmas presents?” 

“That’s too many questions,” Reggie told him, and Carlos seemed to realize that at the same moment. 

“Do ghosts buy Christmas presents?” Carlos repeated, and Reggie dropped the hackie sack on his head, as per the system that Flynn had developed months ago and Carlos had adopted. 

“I don’t know,” he said, dropping down to pick up the hackie sack. “I haven’t exactly had a ghost Christmas yet.” 

Carlos hummed in consideration. “I think you should,” he decided. “Christmas is fun and getting presents is fun and I know Julie bought you a present, so you at least need to get one for her.” 

“What did she get me?” Reggie wanted to know, and Carlos was silent for a minute. 

“She bought you a strap for your guitar,” Carlos told him. Reggie had already long since learned that he couldn’t keep secrets. “It’s really cool.” 

“Awesome,” Reggie said, grinning. “But that means I have to get her something really cool, too.” 

“I’m gonna guess that since you didn’t know if ghosts do Christmas presents that you also haven’t done any Christmas shopping,” Carlos said, and Reggie bounced the hackie sack off his right sholder. “Good. Then you’re not allowed to judge me, either.” 

Carlos chattered on as they made their way to the mall, sometimes waiting for Reggie’s hackie sack answers but mostly not needing to. Reggie answered him back, filling him in on whatever he could think of. 

This was fun. This was nice. 

Don’t get him wrong. Luke and Alex and Julie were great, but Carlos was a hilarious kid and Reggie always enjoyed spending time with him. It would’ve been even better if Carlos could see him, but Reggie would take what he could get. 

Carlos had made a list of everyone they needed to shop for today. It wasn’t too long a list. Two presents for Julie. Two for Ray. Two for each of the other band members. Two for Flynn. Some for Carlos’s friends from school. One for Reggie. (“You have to actually not look, okay? That’s cheating.”) 

Reggie had a few more on his own list. One for Carlos, of course, and maybe some for his family. He should get them presents, right? Even if they wouldn’t know who they’d be from? He’d decide later. 

Carlos had also reminded Reggie multiple times that his dad hadn’t given him enough money to buy Reggie’s presents, too, so Reggie had taken the initiative to find his own money. They all worked on the songs that Bobby stole, right? So it was really just taking back some of what he was owed when he phased into Bobby’s safe and took a wad of cash. It wasn’t stealing. 

Carlos’s eyes widened when the cash appeared in his pocket. “We can go crazy with this,” he said, fanning it out in front of him. Then he held it out to the air. “Give it to me when I need it. You can’t trust me with this kind of money.” 

So the money was back in Reggie’s pocket when they walked into the mall. 

It was chaos. That hadn’t changed in the last twenty five years. Everyone still waited until the last minute to Christmas shop and the malls were crazy. 

The chaos was comforting. 

“Let’s do this,” he said, rubbing his hands together, and then followed Carlos towards the first store. 

It took a few stores, but they eventually came up with a system. Carlos would suggest something by pointing it out. If Reggie agreed it was a good idea, he’d stick it in Carlos’s right hand. If he didn’t, it got stuck in his left hand. If Reggie had an idea for a gift, he’d just hand it to Carlos for Carlos to decide. Once they made a purchase, Reggie would pop away with the bags and hide them under Carlos’s bed and then pop back. 

It was going great, honestly. Their shopping was going a lot faster than Reggie would have expected.

Which led to now, standing in an aisle in a store Reggie couldn’t remember the name of, staring at an item on the shelf.

“I think this is Julie’s present,” Carlos said, staring up at it. “I don’t think we’ll ever be able to find anything more perfect.”

“I think you’re right,” Reggie agreed, tilting his head and taking it in. It was a lamp, which wouldn’t be the most exciting present except for what the lamp looked like.

It was one of those fish, the ones from really deep in the sea that were inherently creepy as, like, a rule, the ones with the light dangling from their heads. The lamp was literally just the fish, about the size of Reggie’s head, and where the light dangled from its head was where the light of the lamp was, too, just a single bare bulb dangling from the head of the creepy deep sea fish.

He picked one up off the shelf and deposited it in the cart, and Carlos grinned slightly to the left of Reggie, who assumed the grin was meant for him.

He looked at the shelf again. There were two versions of the fish lamp, one fat and round, and one skinnier with bigger teeth. He’d already put one of the fat ones into the cart, and grabbed the skinny one on impulse, adding it to their purchases.

“I’ll get her one too,” he decided. “She can have a matching set.”

“Everyone’s gonna be so jealous they aren’t as good at shopping as us,” Carlos declared, pushing the cart down the aisle. “We’re gonna win Christmas.”

They took a break not long after for lunch. Carlos bought Reggie some fries, which was nice of him, even if Reggie couldn’t actually eat them. He’d also done something technical and confusing with his phone and his earpiece, so whatever Reggie typed on the phone would be read in Carlos’s ear.

“Testing, testing,” Reggie typed and hit enter.

Carlos grinned at him a second later. “It works,” he said and then took a bite of his burger.

They chatted on, Reggie finally able to respond to everything Carlos was talking about. He learned a lot about the latest TV shows and movies and video games, and all the seventh grade gossip. Alex and Luke would be so jealous of how up with the times he was getting.

Sitting here, at a table in a mall with Carlos and greasy food, the sounds of people around him so loud that they basically had to yell to hear each other, it sent him back in time, made him wonder about what could have been and what was.

He hadn’t realized he’d zoned out until a fry flew through his head.

“What are you thinking about?” Carlos asked, staring at his chin.

Reggie stared at him for a second, and then started typing on the phone.

“I used to take my little brother Christmas shopping,” he said, watching Carlos as the words did their magic technology thing and turned from letters on a screen into sound. “You remind me of him.”

Carlos sat there for a little longer than Reggie would have thought it would have taken for the thing in his ear to read him Reggie’s words.

“I didn’t know you have a brother,” he finally said, and Reggie sighed, picking up the phone again.

“Yeah,” he said, dropping his eyes to his hands as he thought back to the last time he’d sought out his family. “He’s not so little anymore. He’s thirty seven now, and has a wife and kids.”

“That’s crazy,” Carlos said, and Reggie sent over his agreement.

They sat in silence for a bit, Carlos picking at his fries and Reggie picking at a ghost sticker on the back of Carlos’s phone.

“Are you gonna get him a Christmas present?”

Reggie’s head snapped up. Carlos was just sitting there, not even attempting to look at him.

“I don’t even know what he’d like,” he said, because that was the truth. He should get his brother and his parents presents, because they deserved to get nice things and, with the money he’d rightfully taken from Bobby, he could afford to get them nice things.

But he’d been dead for so long that he wouldn’t even know where to start.

“I can help,” Carlos suggested immediately, perking up again. “He’s almost my dad’s age, basically, and I know what dads like.”

From the dinosaur themed sheet and comforter set that Carlos had picked out for Ray, Reggie wasn’t a hundred percent sure that Carlos really did know what dads like, but he would definitely welcome the help.

“Okay,” he agreed, and Carlos nodded and set about shoving the rest of his lunch into his mouth. Reggie stared at the phone in his hand for another minute before typing again.

“Do you think I should get something for my parents, too?”

Hunting for the perfect gift for his parents and his brother was harder than Carlos made it out to be. It had to be perfect enough for it to remind them of him, but not so perfect that they started suspecting something weird going on.

It was a very specific, very small window they had to work with.

Reggie was a huge fan, though, of their new system of communication. He’d have to bring this Bluetooth thing up with the guys, turn it into something more than a onetime thing.

They did it, though. The present wasn’t something they found at the mall, but, by the time Ray started texting to remind Carlos to be home for dinner, they’d come up with the perfect gift. They’d also found perfect gifts for everyone else, too, already hidden away under Carlos’s bed and in his closet, so that was also a success.

Reggie stood outside his brother’s house on Christmas Eve, staring in through the window. His parents were over, standing around the living room with drinks in their hands and smiles on their faces. Eddie was talking to someone Reggie didn’t recognize. He still looked like his little brother, even though he was so much older now and went by Ed. He was still his little brother.

There were so many people in their house. Some of them Reggie recognized vaguely, ghosts of family and friends he’d known so long ago. Others he didn’t, new friends and new family.

In another life, he’d be in there, too, maybe with a whole family of his own.

He moved back towards the door, where Carlos was standing, shifting a little awkwardly on the front step.

“Are you gonna ring the bell yet?” he whispered, glancing around like he was trying to figure out where Reggie actually was. “They’re gonna notice me out here at some point.”

“Right,” Reggie said, and took a deep breath before reaching out and pressing the doorbell.

The door opened a few moments later, and he had to look down to see who answered, taking in the messy black hair and glasses of his pre-teen nephew.

“Hey, Reggie,” he said softly. “Merry Christmas.”

“Hi,” Carlos said, waving slightly, and the younger Reggie’s attention focused on him. “Is Eddie home? I need to talk to him.”

Reggie stared at him through his glasses for another second before turning to yell into the house. “Dad! Someone’s here to see you!”

And then Reggie watched his nephew disappear back into the house, his brother appearing a few moments later.

“Hi,” Reggie breathed, staring up at him because, when Eddie grew up, he grew _up_. “Hi, Eddie.”

His brother didn’t answer, because he couldn’t see him so why would he answer? He just offered Carlos a smile.

“Can I help you?” he asked, and Carlos shifted.

“Yeah,” he said. Then thrust out his hand. “This is for you.”

“Sunset Curve,” he read, brushing his fingers over the label. “What is this?”

Carlos shrugged. “It’s a Christmas album,” he said. “There were some boxes of their stuff in our garage when we moved in. I tracked you down. I think one of the guys in the band is your brother?”

“Reggie,” Eddie said softly, and Reggie moved closer, trying to see his brother’s face again.

“Yeah,” Carlos said, and Reggie could tell that even though he’d agreed to this, it was still awkward for him. “So it’s a bunch of Christmas songs and I thought you’d want it. Have a merry Christmas!”

And then Carlos was running off—no names, no identifying information, exactly how they’d planned—and Reggie was left on the doorstep with his brother.

“Who is it?” someone called from inside, and then Eddie was shaking himself off and stepping back into the house.

Reggie followed him in, watched him walk over to their parents and show them the CD.

He’d recorded all the songs in the last few days with Luke and Alex, and was more than happy with how it turned out. He didn’t kid himself that a CD of Christmas songs would make up for twenty five years of missed birthdays and Christmases and, you know, dying in the first place.

But he thought it might make up for it a little, and Carlos agreed.

And, when someone turned off the Christmas music that was already playing and put the Sunset Curve CD into the DVD player and turned up the speakers, it looked like his family agreed, too.

He waited there, watching them, through the first two songs. His mom cried a bit when his voice first joined Luke’s in Here Comes Santa Claus, but they were mostly just smiling and hugging each other. Eddie told his kids that this was Uncle Reggie’s music, and even the people Reggie didn’t recognize shared smiles and didn’t complain about the abrupt change in music.

And then he left. Because as much as Eddie was his brother, as much as his parents were his parents, as much as this was his family, he didn’t belong with them anymore. In the twenty five years he’d lost, he’d missed so much time with them. He’d given them their present, and that was all he could do for them anymore.

So he left and he went home.

“Open mine next,” Carlos said, shoving a badly wrapped present towards Julie. “Actually, you need to open Reggie’s at the same time. They’re a set.”

So Reggie pushed his present over, too, wiggling his eyebrows at Julie.

“You two shopping together was a mistake,” Julie declared before she’d even started opening the presents. “Somebody should have gone to supervise you.”

“Just open it,” Carlos urged, almost jumping. “You’re gonna love it.”

Julie might have had a point. While Ray insisted he loved the dinosaur sheets from Carlos, and Alex genuinely seemed excited about his new glow in the dark drum sticks from Reggie, everyone else seemed to have bought much more practical gifts.

“Wow,” Julie said, laughing as she pulled a fish lamp from the wrapping paper. Reggie honestly couldn’t remember which one he’d given her and which one Carlos had, but it didn’t really matter in the end. “This is…something.”

“Open the other one,” Reggie and Carlos said at the same time, and Julie laughed some more.

There was one present on their shopping trip that Carlos hadn’t let Reggie see, and that present was eventually pushed in his direction.

“Merry Christmas, Reggie,” Carlos said, grinning at a spot slightly to the right of Reggie.

Reggie had bought Carlos a supposedly authentic Ghost Busters ghost hunting kit, which he’d thought was hilarious, so he was expecting to find something along a similar vein to the rest of the presents they’d bought together. Useful, but fundamentally funny.

He wasn’t expecting to unwrap a t-shirt.

“I need more shirts,” he told the group, trying to hide the slight disappointment he felt, even though Carlos couldn’t see it anyway. He’d been expecting something that fit with the other gifts they’d bought. Maybe it was a funny shirt.

And then he unfolded the shirt and any thoughts of disappointment disappeared.

“Does he like it?” Carlos asked, staring at Julie. “Because if he doesn’t like it, I can get him something else. It might be weird.”

Reggie dropped the shirt, moving towards Carlos and putting all his energy into making his arms tangible.

“Is he hugging me?” Carlos asked, glancing around and half-slapping, half-patting Reggie’s shoulder. “I feel something happening.”

“Yeah, he’s hugging you,” Julie answered, leaning across the circle and grabbing the shirt. “I think he likes it.”

“What’s on the shirt?” Alex asked, and Julie spread it open in front of her.

“World’s best big brother,” she read, and Reggie closed his eyes, hugging Carlos a little tighter.

“Yeah,” Carlos said, and Reggie could feel him shrugging. “I mean, I always wanted a big brother, and Reggie’s the coolest out of all of you. He’s really bad at video games, but he still likes to play them. And he’s the best at helping pick out presents. I don’t know. I just kind of think of you as my brother, Reggie, and I thought you’d like the shirt.”

“I do,” he told Carlos, and Julie relayed his words. “I think of you as my little brother, too.”

It was okay that Reggie didn’t feel at home with his family he’d had before he died. It was okay that that wasn’t where he belonged anymore.

Because this was his home. This was his family.

And it was pretty freaking great.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed!!!
> 
> Have a Merry Christmas for anyone who celebrates that, and a Happy Thursday to everyone else!
> 
> Comments and kudos give me life!
> 
> Come follow me on Tumblr at probably-voldemort!


End file.
